My impression is that the public schools with a fixed police presence are typically middle and high schools. The primary role of the police in these schools is not to protect the students from an outside threat, such as a would be mass killer, but to handle the range of police problems that occur in the student community...gangs, drugs, theft, truancy, etc.

I am not aware of any elementary schools with SROs, for the issues that SROS typically deal with are not usually present among elementary school kids. They're just too young.

So, placing an officer in a given elementary school to protect against a statistically remote chance of mass murder attempt is hard to justify, from a financial standpoint. The SROs in middle and high schools have much more to deal with to justify their positions...and the cost of those positions.

So, I see the biggest obstacle to placing police in elementary schools as being financial.

Of course, a madman looking to carry out an attack in a school might well choose an elementary school over a middle or high school because it is the softest of soft targets...if Newtown style attacks become a trend, then the financial calculus could change.

I agree that many of the liberal mindset have an aversion to a police presence on schools, any school, and would be similarly averse to armed private security at schools. Again, that aversion is subject to change if Newtown style attacks become the trend.

In CA, the law is pretty much that kids under 7 cannot commit crimes and kids age 7-14 have a rebuttable presumption that they cannot commit crimes due to lack of understanding of their actions. It doesn't really matter over 14 either due to our joke of a juvenile criminal system that treats offenders under 18 as babies while they laugh at us busting our butts to arrest them for all sorts of crimes like burglary, drugs, assaults, gang crimes, etc.

Then the juvenile court judge tells us to leave the room while he talks to the juvenile offender to get his story because having us in there in uniform is too intimidating to the poor juvenile. Whatever.

That is one reason there is no real need for uniformed cops in elementary schools because you are not really able to do anything anyway as far as enforcing the laws. Now with Newtown, the paradigm shifts from enforcement to protection, but is that enough to justify paying a cop to stand around all day playing school administrator?

There's even debate over whether anyone should have a gun in a school, even a trained law enforcement officer. "In general teachers don't want guns in schools period," said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, one of the two large unions representing teachers. He added that one size does not fit all districts and said the union has supported schools that wanted a trained officer. Most teachers, he said, do not want to be armed themselves.

In CA, the law is pretty much that kids under 7 cannot commit crimes and kids age 7-14 have a rebuttable presumption that they cannot commit crimes due to lack of understanding of their actions. It doesn't really matter over 14 either due to our joke of a juvenile criminal system that treats offenders under 18 as babies while they laugh at us busting our butts to arrest them for all sorts of crimes like burglary, drugs, assaults, gang crimes, etc.

Then the juvenile court judge tells us to leave the room while he talks to the juvenile offender to get his story because having us in there in uniform is too intimidating to the poor juvenile. Whatever.

That is one reason there is no real need for uniformed cops in elementary schools because you are not really able to do anything anyway as far as enforcing the laws. Now with Newtown, the paradigm shifts from enforcement to protection, but is that enough to justify paying a cop to stand around all day playing school administrator?

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Honestly, no, it's not worth the expense. How many elementary schools do you have in your jurisdiction? I know that here it's pretty much 2-3 elementary schools feed 1 middle school and 1-2 middle schools feed a high school. Are you really going to pay $30k-60k a year for an officer at an elementary school on the .00001% chance that something like Newton happens?

Whether we like it or not, our country (feds, state, city/county) does not have the money to fund this. We have 28 high schools, 42 middle schools and 101 elementary schools. And since most of our SROs are topped out, we'll just use an average of $60k. We are looking at over $6 Million dollars just to fund the SROs in elementary schools for a year. Not counting cars, equipment and benefits. I know we have a larger area than most, but we also have a larger budget. I'm sure that pared down it would be similar across the board. If money were not an issue, then sure, go for it. But realistically, it's just not practical with the financial stability we find ourselves in.

In SoCal, your average SRO will cost six figures, with salary in the $60k range at minimum, plus statutory benefits like worker's comp and FICA, and PERS retirement contributions, and medical and health insurance costs, and you are looking at each SRO costing the employer around $100-130k each.

In SoCal, your average SRO will cost six figures, with salary in the $60k range at minimum, plus statutory benefits like worker's comp and FICA, and PERS retirement contributions, and medical and health insurance costs, and you are looking at each SRO costing the employer around $100-130k each.

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The SRO at the high school where my wife teaches pulled almost $90k last year. Throw her in her fringe benefits and that was probably a $125-130k nut for the village. And that's one school. I believe there are about 20 including the privates.

In SoCal, your average SRO will cost six figures, with salary in the $60k range at minimum, plus statutory benefits like worker's comp and FICA, and PERS retirement contributions, and medical and health insurance costs, and you are looking at each SRO costing the employer around $100-130k each.

Strawman much? Red herring much? Misdirect much? Put words in other people's mouth much? When did I put any worth on any child, including mine? I am stating the plain costs to an employer when they have to decide where to deploy very limited resources such as an officer and a tight budget.

Or are you clairvoyant and know something that I don't, such as me being promoted to chief of police with unlimited personnel and budget resources so that I can put an officer everywhere to prevent crime?

Let me turn it around on you, since you guys are so great at that type of logic. How much is your family or your life worth? Do you spend every single dime you have to hire them around the clock armed bodyguards? No? Why not? Are they not worth it? You hypocrite. Why don't you pony up the money to put an officer at your kid's school?

Given the small number of occurrences and the large expense, it's completely unfeasible to pay for a police officer to sit in every elementary school all week long. If such a plan was implemented, it would result in a significant increase in taxes to justify the staffing increases. People might (big might) be willing to deal with that today, but in six months or a year when Newtown is another place "where something happened once", they won't.

On the law enforcement side, such a plan has recruiting problems, too. I don't think you're going to find a lot of guys who are going to want to do it week in and week out. It's definitely not what I signed up for, and I can do a whole lot more good the vast majority of time on the street. That means you end up with one of two types of officers in the schools: retired-on-duty folks or new inexperienced folks. Both are better than nothing, but neither are ideal.

Officers in schools are great, but they weren't really put there to prevent or engage an external threat. They will certainly do that though, and I'm sure there is more focus on that this week. I saw a Superintendent quoted today in opposition to officers in schools because then there would be more bullets flying if something happened. I don't understand how someone with a PhD can be carrying around that much stupid in one body.

Our high schools have always had officers, this week they added them to the middle schools. I have a kid in elementary. I sent the vice principal a note, offering to be a uniformed presence sometimes when I am off and followed up with a visit. Staff told me to come anytime. I'm hoping to get a couple of other parents to do the same. It won't be perfect, but between us and the city guys doing close patrol when they can, it is a lot better than nothing.

It is hard to imagine anyone's child huddled in a corner with the teacher telling them they are loved because she wants that to be the last thing they hear before they are murdered.

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That is funny in a horrible sort of way. You can cut the number of bullets flying in half if you prevent anyone from shooting back.

Of course, you now have more dead people, but it cut the number of bullets flying into the bad guy. Is this an improvement in safety?

Is anyone thinking about attacks on school buses. If the schools all have SRO and someone wants to hurt multiple kids they could stand at a school bus drop off point with a hidden pistol and enter/attack it when it stopped and the door was open. A person wouldn't look out of place standing by waiting for their kid to be dropped off.

Is anyone thinking about attacks on school buses. If the schools all have SRO and someone wants to hurt multiple kids they could stand at a school bus drop off point with a hidden pistol and enter/attack it when it stopped and the door was open. A person wouldn't look out of place standing by waiting for their kid to be dropped off.

I've always been more concerned about sporting events. My wife's high school has 1900 kids and puts about 5000 in the stands under the Friday night lights. We also have bigger schools - 3000 to 5000 students - that are drawing close to 10,000 spectators on game night.

You could do some damage. Even with 6 armed officers on foot patrol at a football game the LE response would be pretty limited - think thousands of people running through the single entrance/exit and practically stampeding the responding officers.

One of the first capers I worked as a fresh rook was a gang shooting at a football game. It appears some young'uns wanted to impress the OG's and went to a local high school football game and popped off random shots at the crowd after the game when everyone was on the field.

Hit a cheerleader and one of the fathers. Luckily nobody died, but the father will carry that bullet in his leg forever because it was too close to the femoral artery for them to risk going after it.

Of course, that was a long time ago way before Columbine and it wasn't considered active shooter, but yeah, they made off before any response could be mustered even with us in the area. Now imagine with the new breed of idiots who are planning way more sophisticated attacks. We are way undermanned.

Is anyone thinking about attacks on school buses. If the schools all have SRO and someone wants to hurt multiple kids they could stand at a school bus drop off point with a hidden pistol and enter/attack it when it stopped and the door was open. A person wouldn't look out of place standing by waiting for their kid to be dropped off.

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